The downtown Englewood post office is home to a 1940 Boardman Robinson mural. The Postal Service is considering closingthe office, and residents and officials are concerned about the fate of the building and artwork.

An unusual coalition of customers, historical preservationists and art enthusiasts is coming together to stop the potential shuttering of Englewood’s downtown post office.

The concern goes beyond the convenience of buying stamps. The building houses a key Colorado mural, painted by noted artist Boardman Robinson more than half a century ago.

“We intend as a city to aggressively oppose the closing of that post office,” said Englewood Mayor Jim Woodward. “We intend to fight it with everything we have.”

In order to streamline operations and cut costs, the U.S. Postal Service may put the 72-year-old building at 3330 S. Broadway on the market, spokesman Alex Turner said. It is considering a merger of its operations with another office at 915 W. Lehigh Ave.

What happens to the 1940 mural, he said, will depend on who purchases the building and what the buyer intends to do with the property. Because the work was painted on canvas in Robinson’s Colorado Springs studio, it could conceivably be moved.

If the building is sold, Turner said, options for the mural would include keeping it in its current location or shifting it to the Lehigh Avenue post office. Whatever happens, the Postal Service wants to make sure the public has access to the work.

“USPS remains the owner-custodian of this mural, and we will ensure its continued preservation, significance and proper handling,” Turner said.

Among those who intend to make sure the Postal Service keeps its word is Jim Hare, executive director of Colorado Preservation Inc. He said his organization is monitoring the plight of the local landmark, which could be a candidate for its annual list of the state’s most endangered historic places.

Diane Wray Tomasso, a historical preservation consultant in Englewood, was one of the first people to raise the alarm about plans for the building’s sale.

“We don’t have a huge body of important architecture and art in our city, and this is at the top of the heap,” Tomasso said.

Working at the grassroots level is Doris Fisher, a resident of a senior high-rise within eyeshot of the post office. She spent several days last week outside the building, collecting 400 signatures from people opposed to its shuttering.

“It’s a beautiful building,” Fisher said. “It’s 72 years old, and a lot of people around here use it.”

The 6-by-12-foot mural, titled “Colorado Horse Sale,” was one of 18 commissioned for Colorado post offices in the 1930s and ’40s. It depicts a livestock auction, with buyers on stair-step seating. A girl holding a soda bottle in the foreground peers at the viewer, and mountains can be seen in the distance.

Robinson, who studied in Paris at the turn of the last century and served as art editor of Vogue from 1905 to 1907, became a key teacher from 1930 through 1945 at the Broadmoor Art Academy, which was later absorbed into the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. His works can be found in such prestigious institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

“I think it is the most important piece that he did in Colorado,” said Jack Kunin, an appraiser and frequent author on Colorado art.

An artful wall

The post office’s 6-by-12-foot mural, titled “Colorado Horse Sale,” was one of 18 commissioned for Colorado post offices in the 1930s and ’40s.

It depicts a livestock auction, with buyers seated on stair steps. A girl holding a bottle of soda in the foreground peers at the viewer, and mountains can be seen in the distance through an upper rear window.

It was created in 1940 by Boardman Robinson, one of the most influential artists in Colorado art history.